The cost of fabricating your job depends on your design, material selection, quantity, machine used etc.

See our sample prices.

It depends on the type of job. For example, the tooling for an injection molding job is paid for only on the first order. But for a process that does not require hard tooling, the machine has to be setup again for a reorder although the setup cost is relatively low. The price given by the software automatically accounts for this.

In custom manufacturing - whether for machine parts from eMachineShop, printed brochures from a printer or stuffed teddy bears, setup costs are often the main factor in the price when ordering just one or a few parts. This is why custom manufacturing costs more than off-the-shelf products. For example if you design a threaded bolt in the CAD and want to order one or a few pieces don't expect to pay what you would pay for a stock item at a hardware store.

The reason is that a custom manufacturer has to go through several steps whether you order one or many parts. For example, even for quantity one of a simple part here are some the steps eMachineShop might go thru for an order:

1. Review the order
2. Locate material in stock or order material
   
3. Program the machine
   
4. Setup cutting tools
   
5. Setup a way to hold material during cutting
6. Test run the program
7. Run the parts
8. Perform initial inspection
9. Debur the edges
   
10. Clean the parts
    
11. Perform final inspection
12. Pack the parts
    
13. Ship the parts
14. Log the shipment on the database
    

Nevertheless, eMachineShop strives to keep setup costs as low as practical and is usually competitive compared to other custom manufacturers even at quantity one.

Also, see the eMachineShop store for another way to reduce your cost.

If you are new to custom manufacturing you might think some designs cost more than you would expect. Some of the common reasons for this follow:

• It is not appropriate to compare the price of a part in a store with it's custom manufactured counterpart. For example, a threaded bolt from a hardware store that costs $1 might cost $100 when custom manufactured at quantity 1. This is because most parts sold in stores are made in large quantities which spreads the setup and tooling costs over the large quantity.
• Parts sold in stores are often made using a process different from what is used for small quantity custom runs. For example, a 6" copper pipe that costs $5 in a store is likely made by extrusion, whereas a custom pipe made in low quantity more likely would be machined, because although machining is more expensive, using extrusion at low quantity would be even more expensive. Similarly, many retail parts are made by injection molding which is also more economical than machining but only at large quantities.
• Parts that are machined at low quantity are usually made from a solid block of material. So, even if the amount of material in the finished part is minimal, much material is used in the process. Both the cost of the block of material and the time to remove the unused material add to the cost. Also note that the cost of a block of material depends mainly on the volume and the volume increases with the cube of the size. For example a 2x2x2 block of material is typically 8 times as expensive as a 1x1x1 block. A 10x10x10 block of material would typically be about 1,000 times as expensive as a 1x1x1 block.

One way to circumvent the higher costs of lower quantities is to use the eMachineShop Store. Also see Reducing Cost and Time.